March 14, 2018

Abstract Heart: Passion, emotion, deeply-held beliefs – how do we express and convey these concepts through an abstract vocabulary? Abstract Heart solicits work that speaks from the soul through a personal visual language. ...

Introduced in 2017, the FOCUS series features the work of ten artists in a theme-based exhibition. Selections are curated by a different juror for each exhibition with each artist represented by multiple examples of their work in service to the particular show’s theme.

Abstract Heart: Passion, emotion, deeply-held beliefs – how do we express and convey these concepts through an abstract vocabulary? Abstract Heart solicits work that speaks from the soul through a personal visual language.

February 9, 2018

Watching bad TV has never been so fun. I've been working on these crumpled tracing paper drawings in the evenings with the television going. Needless to say I watch a lot of Cheers and Frasier reruns. Thinking of a better title for them.........

Byron Kim’s painting ritual

Every Sunday, Byron Kim makes a painting of the sky. One hundred of these purposefully unremarkable small canvases are on view at James Cohan through February 17. What makes them unremarkable are their size and the undramatic skies they depict – not the complex, sublime sky paintings made by, say, great Dutch painters like Aelbert Cuyp and Jacob van Ruisdael. Instead, they are simple renderings with a limited palette of blue and white, and a bit of light grey for the odd cloudy day. Rather than offering an expansive view or capturing the subtle color ranges in cloud forms, these paintings convey a dainty sense of claustrophobia and ennui but no real sense of joy or wonder. It is as if the monotonous ritual of making a painting a week were more important to Kim than the painted image itself.

Thus, in Kim’s exhibition, quantity, habit, and process seem to trump the quality of the individual paintings. Reinforcing this point, Kim has handwritten a prosaic note about the day on each painting, perhaps as an indication that Kim’s ambition and concentration have gone missing in the mire of family life and all the yawn-inducing tasks that a successful artist must perform. Kim may be living the dream, but it doesn’t seem very transporting.

The project reminds me of On Kawara’s Date Paintings. Each day Kawara crafted a painting of the date in the ubiquitous sans serif typeface Helvetica. In the box where he stored the painting, he also included a page of the newspaper from the city where he was working. Like Kawara, Kim is interested in the idea of maintaining a serial approach rather than engaging with the materiality of paint. But Kim’s project also conjures a link to more painterly perceptual artists, such as Lois Dodd and Giorgio Morandi. Morandi spent his life painting easel-sized still-lifes that depicted small cups, bowls, and other tabletop vessels in tertiary colors, even as World War II raged around him. Lois Dodd has painted the landscape around her familiar Maine homestead for decades, and the resulting body of work is a moving record of a quiet and dedicated life.

Both Morandi and Dodd focus narrowly on translating their immediate surroundings with great painterly nuance onto canvas to convey the emotional timbre of their lives. In this distracted age, especially as the big picture becomes increasingly daunting, it’s undeniably tempting for artists to employ this kind of approach as a kind of refuge. Kim presents an alternative escape, whereby grim routine isolates the artist and decontextualizes the personal content of his work. It’s rather dispirited, and perhaps a sign of the times.

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January 19, 2018

Today I watched NYFA's live seminar to get more info. You could comment online and they would read the comments out loud and answer the questions. Just as she started to answer my question the live feed got disconnected,.... which I took as irony. They came back on in a short bit to answer me fully which was great, but just as I was jotting down the answer, probably on the last sentence she was saying, my computer died..... More irony.

It's been a crazy week and it can best be summarized by outrageous technical difficulties and customer service from hell. I will not weary you with the details.

Typing this on my husband's laptop isn't the worst thing in the world, and when January is over, this application will be submitted, along with another one due on the 28th, I will have finished and photographed four new paintings, dropped off work for an upcoming show, the Roaring Twenties Fundraiser I'm hosting will be over, and the early setting up stages for my job as Director of Beacon Open Studios will be fully in place. That is one long sentence. Wish me luck!

January 7, 2018

This looks like a great show. Guest artists were invited to show alongside current members of the gallery. Thanks Barbara Smith Gioia for asking me! Looking forward to seeing these pairings up close.

Souvenez-vous de cette peinture? I just realized it's funny that I painted it in February three years ago, and even labeled it February painting before I titled it "Trepidation".Now it will be hanging during the month of February. Perfect.

January 3, 2018

For some reason writing 2018 seems totally natural, like it's been a long time coming. This year I'm not making resolutions. I mean what's to say a resolution at the beginning of the calendar is any more special than at the end of it, or the middle. I do have plans however... yup, plans are good. I'll have some work included in a few exhibitions coming up:

I'm also planning to apply for that good ol' NYFA Fellowship grant again this year, and more surprises, a couple of people have shown interest in purchasing a painting here and there. So... things are feeling pretty good. At the moment I have a few small pieces in the Small Works show at the Catalyst Gallery in Beacon. The show closes with a reception this Sunday on January 7th.

Samantha Palmeri, Untitled, 2016, oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

This morning I had a lovely studio visit, which I hope is the first of many this year. I get stuck in my own world of time management and obligation and studio work etc. I forget how important it is to stay connected with other artists. Studio visits are awesome! A win-win for everyone. So, maybe that's some kind of a resolution after all, to stay connected. Send me a message if you want to have a studio date... Oh, and happy new year!

"It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc...The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written... I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive."Excerpt from Mary Oliver's essay Of Power And Time